| OCR Text |
Show 1868.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE SUID.E. 37 the female from the Gardens (1363 5). The skull has adult dentition, and it is nearly of the same size, but not so aged, as the skull sent by Captain Alexander; it differs from it in the nose being more compressed and narrowed in front of the orbit. The condyles of this skull are large, and separated by a broad space beneath, as in all the other skulls of the genus, except that received from the Zoological Society. A skeleton of a female, from the Camaroons, that lived in the Society's Gardens (Gerrard, Cat. Bones, no. 1363 5). In the 'Catalogue of Bones in the British Museum' the sexes of 1363 a and b are accidentally reversed. The skull had the dentition of an adult animal ; the canines are very imperfectly developed, cylindrical, and smooth, and the sides flattened and grooved longitudinally beneath. The side of the nose of the skull is not swollen nor warty over the canines, and there is only a well-marked ridge at the base of the upper surface of the sheath of the upper canine. This skull differs from the others of the genus I have compared it with in the small size of the occipital condyles, which are also closer together on their under edge. The hinder nasal opening is wide and rounded. The three skulls also differ in the form of the upper jaws in front of the base of the canines. They are longer and narrower in the two skulls which have been named P. larvatus (1364 a, 1364 b) than they are in the skull from the Camaroons named P. penicillatus or P. porcus (1363 a). But the two skulls with the longer intermaxillaries differ from one another, the intermaxillaries of 1364 6 being longer and narrower than in the skull 1364 a. The ridges on the underside of the canine of P. penicillatus (1363 b) are fewer, coarser, and more irregular than they are on the canines of the two other skulls (1364 a and b). The back and front sides of the canines are rounded in 1363 a, while they are flat in 13G4 a and b; but the two latter differ considerably in flatness. This species has bred in the Society's Gardens, and reared the progeny. It will not breed with the Domestic Pig, or at least has not done so. Marcgrave describes it as having a cyst on the navel, and says that it had been introduced by the negroes, and naturalized in Brazil. I suppose that the Pig has not been found profitable, or was not fitted for the American climate, as the breeding of it has been discontinued. I have inquired of persons who have lived in different parts of Brazil; they all state that they have never seen or heard of the Painted Pig in that country; nor do I find any account of it in the modern works on the natural history of the country. Mr. J. Miers, F.R.S., has observed that Marcgrave only knew of the northern provinces of Brazil, then in possession of the Dutch, and that perhaps it still breeds there. M y son and daughter, who travelled in those districts, and first made entomologists acquainted with the smaller Lepidoptera of the country, of which they collected very many new species, state that they never saw any Bed Pig there. |
